In his first institutional solo exhibition in Germany, Florian Auer presents new work conceived especially for NAK.

Believe in Better alludes to a promising vision of future possibilities. This promise, optimistically and ironically romanticized, is presented in the form of an exhibition concept dealing with questions of identity, consumption and lifestyle and drawing on aesthetic elements in visual culture from corporate culture and brand identity.

Auer’s objects, sculptures and site-specific interventions monopolize the exhibition space, transforming it into a literal place full of promises. The artist employs directional strategies from advertising and product placement, setting up a display that works its way through the exhibition space. This references mechanisms from consumer culture like our world of festishized goods and alludes to contemporary modes of exhibition presentation.

Upon entering the exhibition, visitors are greeted by an over-sized sculpture of a steak—a symbolic relic of the workaday world of business culture that brings to mind business travel in high-class establishments and hotel bars where secret deals are made.

This work also functions as a compendium for the display of other various sculptures and wall pieces arranged in the space. Florian Auer describes a certain lifestyle by borrowing capitalist economic symbols and establishing a surreal reference system whose offerings are both humourous and ambiguous. The objects and sculptures in the exhibition are presented in a kind of exaggerated and overblown store display—but what is on offer here? Office tables and machines from the office culture of bankers and managers in a 1980s aesthetic. Or an abstracted pizzabox, placed on a sculpture, is transformed here into a surreal object—elements from daily culture whose attributes are reordered by a medially altered surrounding. Characterized by an intertwining of sculptural strategies and a post-industrial aesthetic, Auer’s visual language and references reside in everyday, contemporary media.

Florian Auer (born 1984 in Augsburg) studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and at Städelschule in Frankfurt and lives and works in Berlin. He is represented by Galerie Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler in Berlin and has participated in exhibitions at Cell Project Space, London; Lothringer 13, Munich; Andratx, Plama de Mallorca; and MMK, Frankfurt, among others.

Curated by Carla Donauer